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goblue21
07-21-2015, 10:52 AM
Has anyone heard any news on the new building coming out tonight?

Tony81
07-21-2015, 03:37 PM
Has anyone heard any news on the new building coming out tonight?

The new ltb was part of the 30% of the employees that were canned in San Fran. You should expect to see the ltb on the corner outside Kmart offering to mow yards.

Blackshadow
07-21-2015, 04:22 PM
Quests are normalised for start time now. I too have waited 1 hour 21 minutes past the normalised quest start time. Re-booting my device and it is still not there. In a previous engagement, I asked Gree if time could be refunded for late issue of LTB. Answer, it cannot. As all this was discussed well before the last data transfer, with advisement that starting the LTB on time was crucial for all European players, it is obvious that there can only be one conclusion.
There is no LTB.

Rolinz
07-21-2015, 05:38 PM
No new LTB on the Calendar and with all of the lay-offs, no one will be answering here in the near future.

Cue the music by The Doors, "The End".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUIQgEVDM4

garystanley13
07-22-2015, 06:11 AM
Typical Gree screwing over the people that pays all of their salaries. I'm sure that everyone is aware that Gree could care less about us and it isn't going to ever change. JMho

Agent Orange
07-22-2015, 06:25 AM
From the sounds of things there is nobody home so I would not expect any new items and once the current events run their course things will become quiet unless events were designed to run on autopilot.

J-manKometh96
07-22-2015, 07:48 AM
I just heard something similar, that SF is shut down. Can't confirm it though.

Agent Orange
07-22-2015, 07:57 AM
Gaming media is a buzz with the layoff information.

Update 10:04 a.m. Pacific: Gree’s Andrew Sheppard has confirmed layoffs of 30 percent of the San Francisco staff.

Gree has laid off about 30 percent of its staff across its entire Western subsidiary, Gree International. That’s one of the consequences of the Japanese company failing to win the mobile gaming war, where the market size is expected to hit $30 billion this year but competition is always brutal.

In a statement regarding the layoffs that took place yesterday, Sheppard said, “Today we made the difficult decision to reduce the workforce of our Gree International Inc. business by 30 percent. This was done to better align operations with our development goals and business strategy. Several teams in San Francisco were impacted — we are working closely with each and every person to ensure the smoothest transition possible. Offices in other locations were not affected.”

Sheppard did not say how many people were laid off, just a percentage. We’re not sure how many work at Gree in San Francisco now. At the end of Gree’s third quarter, on April 28, the company said it had a total of 1,786 employees.

Earlier in the day, some people were saying on social media that two-thirds of the San Francisco office had been hit. On Facebook, several people have confirmed that they’ve been laid off, including community manager Donna Nicholson.

Gree previously shut down a studio in Vancouver, Canada, last month. At the time, Andrew Sheppard, head of Gree International (the company’s Western division for Europe and the U.S.), noted that the company evaluated market conditions and decided to focus on development and service for its biggest franchises. Overall, revenues were over $1 billion last year.

But mobile gaming is increasingly centered around a smaller group of winners, and Gree hasn’t had huge hits lately.

Sheppard previously noted that mobile gaming has changed since Gree rose to prominence about 10 years ago. Sheppard said it used to be that pretty much any developer had a fair shot at creating a hit game. But the industry has grown to become the second largest gaming category in terms of revenue, where development budgets climb for increasing expectations and top developers are spending up to $40 million a month on marketing campaigns. Other large companies such as Kabam are also restructuring to focus solely on its top money-making titles.

Thanks @serkantoto

Agent Orange
07-22-2015, 07:58 AM
Update: This story originally cited a statement from Gree CEO Andrew Sheppard that the company laid off 30% of staff in its San Francisco studio this week. Gree representatives later contacted Gamasutra to issue a revised statement (used below) claiming that the company laid off 30% of staff at Gree International, the Western arm of Gree, which is headquartered in San Francisco.

Japanese mobile game company Gree has laid off a significant number of people working in its San Francisco office this week, months after shuttering its Vancouver studio entirely.

"Today we made the difficult decision to reduce the workforce of our Gree International Inc. business by 30 percent," Gree chief Andrew Sheppard said today in a statement issued to GamesBeat and Gamasutra. "This was done to better align operations with our development goals and business strategy. Several teams in San Francisco were impacted — we are working closely with each and every person to ensure the smoothest transition possible. Offices in other locations were not affected."

The company is struggling to compete in a crowded mobile games market, and has been reporting declining profits for some time.

As always, if you or someone you know was affected by these layoffs you can email Gamasutra to tell your story confidentially.

Update #2: A verified source involved in the layoffs tells Gamasutra that the entire QA department of Gree's San Francisco office, as well as a large number of engineers, artists and other development staff, lost their jobs this week.

The source estimates that the headcount in the San Francisco office was reduced by as much as 66 percent by the cuts, and went on to speculate that Gree International is moving away from active game development and focusing more on publishing by relocating some of its internal development to other Gree offices and outsourcing its QA efforts.

NexusImperium
07-22-2015, 09:53 AM
Just chiming in here but with their release schedule this cycle's LTB should've already been completed. The LTB for NEXT cycle is the one that might be at risk.

Also, it shouldn't take more than 2-3 people to run the MW show, or at least maintain stationkeeping until the changes shake out.

Despite the decline over the last 8 months I still think MW is a profitable game for Gree and I doubt they'd shut it down. The layoffs were likely structured to keep certain things running.

J-manKometh96
07-22-2015, 09:56 AM
You are right. However we don't know if there is anyone left there to actually deploy it. Yes it should be automatic, but we all know from past experience that's not always the case.

goblue21
07-22-2015, 05:02 PM
New building out!

Tony81
07-22-2015, 05:20 PM
New building out!

26 hours late after we get the 3% time reduction in wd. Coincidence? I think not.

Jg48
07-22-2015, 05:43 PM
Most should be able to upgrade in time gold free

Laurence1
07-22-2015, 05:54 PM
Ltb is out now go for it

psyconaz
07-22-2015, 06:58 PM
Funny now we got the curragh engeenering corp and economic center same look this is awesome

sbs2716g
07-23-2015, 09:14 PM
this LTB is in Singapore? weird....